ROPE at Amherst Cinema – Hitchcock Series

ROPE is Alfred Hitchcock’s legendary 1948 experiment with a continuous-take cinema. The entire 80-minute film consists of only 10 or 12 shots, with the shifting emphases of Hitchcock’s gliding camera taking the place of traditional montage techniques.

The style is extremely claustrophobic and controlling, which matches the theme of the Patrick Hamilton play on which the film is based: two epicene young men (Farley Granger and John Dall) arbitrarily murder a college classmate, place his body in a trunk in the middle of their apartment, and then invite the victim’s friends and family for a cocktail party.